The big story in yesterday’s Asbury Park Press was the political spat between southern Jersey lawmakers and U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg over the proposed Rutgers-Rowan merger. Large photos of State Senate President Sweeney and Lautenberg covered most of the front page.
In case you haven’t been following, Governor Chris Christie has proposed reorganizing Rutgers, Rowan and the University of Medicine and Dentistry. Rutgers-Camden would become part of Rowan. Rowan would get a medical school associated with George Norcross Univeristy Cooper University Hospital. Robert Wood Johnson Hospital would become part of a medical school at Rutgers-New Brunswick, and it will be a while before there are more UMDNJ indictments.
MMM hasn’t been following it all that much. Our young legal eagle friends at Save Jersey don’t like it because they think it will devalue their law degrees if they apply to a firm that doesn’t know the difference between Rutgers-Camden and Rutgers-Newark. And then there’s the two idiots who don’t like the deal…that former Navy SEAL that ran for Assembly who got into it with Christie at a Town Hall meeting and Lautenberg.
If not for the idiot SEAL and the idiot U. S. Senator nobody from New Jersey who isn’t directly affected by the merger would know about it, except for news junkies like us.
Lautenberg wrote to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan alleging the proposed merger is improper and copied U.S. Attorney General Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder and New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney Paul “New Jersey is not corrupt” Fishman, thereby implying that the merger is criminal.
Having already used “idiot” and “numb-nuts” with great fanfare, Christie’s team dubbed Lautenberg’s letter as “outrageous,” “uninformed,” and “bizarre.”
None of that was front page newsworthy. It took Norcross and Sweeney launching Sweeney’s 2014 campaign for Launtenberg’s job to make the front page of the APP.
Wednesday morning Sweeney emailed a scathing open letter attacking Lautenberg for opposing the merger and for his failure as a U.S. Senator to bring home Washington money for New Jersey’s higher education institutions. Several other south Jersey lawmakers, including two Republicans, signed with letter with Sweeney. Norcross later sent a statement calling Lautenberg a “great Senator for north Jersey” who has failed southern New Jersey to the same email list.
The Sweeney/Norcross statements are not really about the Rutger-Rowan merger. The real message is that Lautenberg’s career is coming to an end. That message has been confirmed by the silence of Democratic leaders who have staid out of this fight. U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, Assembly Speaker Sheilia Oliver, Democratic State Chairman John Wisniewski, and Newark Mayor Cory Booker have all been silent. No one is backing up Lautenberg.
The message to Lautenberg…prepare for retirement… just don’t quit and let Christie appoint your replacement. The message to Democratic donors…don’t give to Lautenberg’s 2014 reelection campaign.
So, the point of the last 460 words is that The Asbury Park Press made the 2014 race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate front page news yesterday. That wouldn’t be so bad if there were not a U.S. Senate election between two relatively unknown candidates, U.S. Senator Bob Mendendez and State Senator Joe Kyrillos this year.
The New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee rejected Phillip Kwon’s nomination to be an Associate Justice of the State Supreme Court.
The committee voted 7-6 against Governor Christie’s nominee. Democratic Senator Brian Stack of Hudson County joined five Republicans in voting for the nomination.
Michael Aron of NJTV said that this is the first time in history that the Judiciary Committee has not approved a governor’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
At issue for the Democrats voting against the nomination was Kwon’s family finances, his political affiliation and his work in the Christie administration’s Attorney General’s office.
The nomination of Chatham Mayor Bruce Harris was not heard today.
Republican members of the committee, called the Democrats’ rejection of Kwon a politically motivated “indefensible character assassination.” In a joint statement Senators Gerald Cardinale, Kevin O’Toole, Joe Kyrillos, Christopher Bateman and Michael J. Doherty said,
Today, Democratic Senators on the Judiciary Committee rejected an exceptionally well-qualified Supreme Court nominee for no good reason whatsoever. From the moment Mr. Kwon was nominated, the Majority engaged in a campaign of intensely personal character assassination centering around issues that were completely immaterial to his fitness to serve on the court.
The Majority’s entire line of questioning and basis for rejecting his nomination centered on events that had absolutely nothing to do with Phil Kwon.
In short, Phil Kwon was railroaded out of sheer partisan animosity toward the governor. Theirs was a rejection seeking a reason. Faced with a nominee whom there was no rational basis to reject, the Majority decided to create one based on the actions of others for which he bears no legal, ethical, or personal responsibility.
If the Majority thinks that its own political ends are what matters in this process, they are mistaken. The only thing that matters is the public’s right to Supreme Court justices that are well qualified, fair, and nominated by a Governor to whom the voters gave this awesome responsibility.
Their petty actions today are a disgrace to the legislature and the people we serve.
Kyrillos Secures Yet Another Unanimous County Endorsement
Ocean County – March 20… Today, the Ocean County Republican Organization endorsed Senator Joe Kyrillos for United States Senate. This is Senator Kyrillos’ sixth unanimous county organization endorsement.
Ocean County Republican Organization Chairman George Gilmore said, “Joe Kyrillos is the leader that will make Ocean County proud in the United States Senate. Ocean County families are struggling with high taxes and out-of-control gas prices. Joe has a proven record of cutting taxes and fighting to reduce spending and that is exactly what we need to get our economy moving again. I am proud to support Joe Kyrillos for U.S. Senate.”
Senator Joe Kyrillos said, “I am honored and humbled to have the support of Chairman Gilmore and the Ocean County Republican Organization endorsement. New Jersey families and small businesses are struggling with higher taxes and job killing regulations from Washington. The Obama/Menendez plan to tax our way to a stronger economy is failing and is just more of the same. We need to cut taxes so families can keep more of what they earn and small businesses can invest and create jobs. In Washington, I will put families and small businesses first and I look forward to making the people of Ocean County and all of New Jersey proud.”
Kyrillos has also been endorsed by Governor Chris Christie and the Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Monmouth County Republican Organizations.
Senator Joseph M. Kyrillos, Jr., 51, is married to Susan Doctorian Kyrillos and they live in Middletown with their children Max and Georgia. He began serving New Jersey’s 13th Legislative District in 1988 when he was elected to the General Assembly. After spending two terms in the Assembly he was elected to the Senate where he has served since 1993. In addition to his official duties, the Senator is employed as Senior Managing Director of Colliers International, the commercial real estate services firm with offices in New York and Parsippany. He is also an advisor to the Newport Capital Group in Red Bank, NJ.
William Brown, the Rutgers-Camden law student who got into it with Governor Christie at a town hall meeting last week and was called an idiot by the Guv, has cleaned himself up and apologized.
The Phillie FoxNews affiliate got Brown’s apology on Tuesday. Bob Ingle, Save Jersey, The State Column, Politico and now MMM have covered the apology. The rest of the media outlets which made Christie’s “idiot” remark national news are mum.
Anna Little is not a lock for the Monmouth or Middlesex county Republican endorsements to take on Congressman Frank Pallone in the 6th district.
The news that Little will not challenge State Senator Joe Kyrillos for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination was met by party regulars and leaders with mild relief, followed by angst at the thought of her being on ticket in the coming campaign.
Party leaders are being cautious not to provoke Little back into the Senate race, an unlikely event as she has been uable to collect sufficient petition signatures for the Senate bid, but they would not be disappointed to see her sit this one out all together.
If she runs for Congress, Little has to be considered the front runner for the party endorsements. Yet many of the Monmouth and Middlesex County screening committee are taking a look at Enresto Cullari, the virtually unknown candidate who announced last week.
Seeing no candidates to challenge Pallone, Cullari decided to run last Wednesday and announced his candidacy on Friday as the news of Little’s switch from the Senate race to the Congressional race started to spread throughout the Monmouth and Middlesex GOP.
Cullari is positioning himself as the more disciplined and better financed choice to support Joe Kyrillos and the County slates.
In an email to screening committee members to be followed by mailer, Cullari said:
I believe that I can raise more money, launch a more disciplined offensive against Pallone, bring more positive attention to the Republican ticket and best help Senator Kyrillos carry on Governor Christie’s work for the state of New Jersey.
He attached this introduction letter touting his accomplishments, vision and unique ethnicity…he’s Filipino, Irish, Ecudorian and Africa…which he says poses a threat to the “grossly false assertions” that the Republican Party is “white and homogenous.”
The Middlesex GOP screening committee meets tonight to make its recommendation to the convention which will endorse a candidate on March 24th.
The Monmouth GOP nominating committee meets to award its endorsement on Friday morning, March 16.
Governor Chris Christie held a press conference yesterday to announce a fix that he doesn’t expect to work to the state’s misguided anti-bullying bill of rights. The anti-bullying law was overturned as an unfunded mandate in January. The “fix” announced yesterday is designed to keep the law, and its new nanny state bureaucracy in place.
From his comments above, it is clear that Christie understands that a “one size fits all” mandate, funded or not, which creates a new level of bureaucracy that will never die, will not work.
Our friend Matt Rooney at Save Jersey points out that the anti-bully law addresses a problem created by court decisions which have deprived teachers of in loco parentis powers that have resulted the loss of control of classrooms.
The courts stripped teachers of in loco parentis (in the place of a parent) powers, so the government responds by creating a nanny state bureaucracy. That’s loco.
Rooney’s old fashion solution is to empower the teachers.
Call me old fashioned, but the answer to our “bullying” problem isn’t the passage of new burdensome, expensive, hard-to-follow legislation that places additional burdens on overburdened teachers. Rather, we need to EMPOWER teachers by letting them control their classrooms again without interference from administrators who are terrified of “my kid is never wrong” parents (and their attorneys). A superior solution to burdensome “anti-bullying” laws: return control of classroom discipline to teachers!
I agree, but would go further. We need to empower teachers not only to discipline their students, we need to empower our teachers to empower children to deal effectively with bullies as a critical part of their education.
Instead of spending money we don’t have on bureaucrats that won’t solve the problem, teach kids to stand up for themselves and to get help standing up for themselves.
There is only one way to disempower a bully. Defeat him or her. Teach kids to do that and you’ll have healthier, happier and stronger kids who grow into healthier, happier stronger adults.
Create a bureaucracy and you’ll get reports and statistics that will “prove” how bad the problem is so that more money will be spent on it so that the bureaucracy can survive.
Education Funding Task Force will Recommend Common Sense Reforms to End Abuse and Manipulation of School Funding Formula
Trenton, NJ – Today, Governor Chris Christie took another important step to move forward with common sense reforms of the state’s system of education funding by convening a task force of experts to root out and eliminate well-documented instances of abuse and manipulation of the school funding formula due to fraud in the Free and Reduced Price School Lunch Program. The Education Funding Task Force, created by Executive Order, will act on the Governor’s commitment to make every education dollar count and ensure funding is not being misdirected, but actually getting to those economically disadvantaged children who need it most.
“Providing a great education that prepares every single child in our state for college or a career has been a top priority of my Administration. For this reason, I’ve proposed a budget that increases state support for education to its highest level ever and an agenda of bold reforms to turn around failing schools,” said Governor Christie. “But how we spend education dollars in our schools is just as important as how we provide them. Funding must follow the child more closely and get to the students who need it most. This Task Force will help to root out and eliminate well-documented fraud and abuse in the Free and Reduced Price School Lunch Program, which has led to the possible misdirection of tens of millions of dollars of education funding.”
The School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) is designed to distribute greater amounts of school aid to districts serving greater numbers of students who are economically at-risk and districts with less property wealth. Currently, participation in the federal Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program serves as the proxy for classifying and counting economically at-risk students. Recent studies and news reports clearly identify high levels of fraudulent enrollment in the program – undercutting the state’s ability to fairly and appropriately determine aid levels for schools. A 2011 report by the State Auditor found that as many as 37 percent of the students in the program are enrolled fraudulently.
Recognizing the importance of maintaining integrity and reliability in this program is crucial to ensuring a fair, accurate and equitable distribution of funding to schools. The Education Funding Task Force is charged with examining the state’s school funding formula and developing recommendations concerning those areas of the formula that may be susceptible to fraud or subject to outside manipulation. This includes participation in the Federal Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program as a proxy for at-risk status and the municipal tax abatement program.
The Task Force will specifically consider the following issues:
·Economically effective measures of student poverty;
·Educationally sound measures of defining at-risk students;
·Appropriate adjustments to SFRA to account for municipal property ratable bases that may be artificially deflated as a result of municipal property tax abatements;
·Identifying all aspects of the SFRA that may be susceptible to fraud, or subject to undue outside manipulation and recommendations to address these abuses; and
·All other such other matters as may be referred to the Task Force by the Governor.
The Education Funding Task Force will be composed of 7 members from inside and outside of government, each with expertise in education funding, policy, administration, governance and fiscal management. All members of the Task Force will serve without compensation.
The Task Force was first called for in the Department of Education’s Education Funding Report released last month, in a recommendation aimed at exploring the use of a new measure for at-risk students in place of participation in the Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program. The funding report outlined a series of common sense measures to improve the school funding formula and to help close the state’s persistent achievement gap by making education funding more closely follow the child.
As Governor Christie has often said, Republicans underestimate President Barack Obama at their own peril.
Using the authority granted to him in the ObamaCare bill that had to be passed before America could find out what was in it, Obama mandated that contraceptives be covered by all health insurance plans, including those provided by employers affiliated with religions that are morally opposed to contraception.
Obama laid a trap for Republicans. They fell for it like a horny teenage girl whose boyfriend promised her he would pull out. It’s almost too late to reverse the consequences.
Now the national debate is over contraception. Not unemployment. Not foreclosures. Not war. Not terrorism. Not the price of gasoline. Not the national debt. Not the mandates of ObamCare. We’re having a national debate about contraception. Republicans have been framed as anti-contraception and as too far out of the mainstream to be a relevant political party.
Republicans could have framed this debate in context of their commitment to repeal ObamaCare if the law is not overturned by the Supreme Court. Instead they got into a national debate over contraception that will hamper, if not destroy, their chances of winning the White House and/or the Senate, even if the Court overturns ObamaCare.
Republicans in Washington and on the presidential campaign trail need to stop talking about contraception. They don’t have the votes to stop what Obama is doing. If they keep doing what they are doing, they never will.
